Tool allows Texans to know wildfire risk

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Texans will be armed with a new Internet tool this wildfire season designed to help anyone spot their wildfire risk and how to respond to it.

The Texas Forest Service on Friday unveiled the new app, the Texas Wildfire Risk Assessment Portal, or TxWRAP, on the steps of the state Capitol.

It uses mapping technology to allow not just emergency response officials but homeowners and the general public to spot acute wildfire risk within a 2-mile radius of where they live.

The projections are based on climate and topology factors that could make fire likely.

Some 26,000 fires across Texas since December 2010 have burned more than 3.9 million acres. The worst was in Bastrop, where monster blazes in September destroyed more than 1,600 homes and charred 33,000 acres.